Blackpool's Jubilee Air Show (Part 2 of 2)

Concluding my look at the Air Show at Blackpool Airport on 28-29 May 1977.

Blackpool is famous for the quick-fire changes of weather. A spell of blue sky provides an excellent backdrop for the RAF's early jets, the Gloster Meteor and the futuristic-looking De Havilland Vampire with its twin fuselage.

An air of excitement always seems to go through the audience of air shows when the Spitfire makes an appearance. This one taxis out to the runway to give its display.

Ah, just the sound of the merlin engine causes shivers down the spine!

Biplanes have been a feature of air shows since the very first days of flight. I'd like to be really authoritative and say "This is a Tiger Moth" but the truth is so many planes looked almost exactly like that famous aeroplane that it could very easily be something else. If you know, leave a comment!

The displays are brought to a pause whilst a helicopter takes off on other business.

Little Nellie the autogyro from the James Bond film You Only Live Twice took part in both ground and air displays during the air show.

A good day for De Havilland... The De Havilland Rapide was a 1933 passenger aircraft built of plywood and carrying six to eight passengers. They had been used for regular air services in the 1930s between Blackpool and the Isle of Man.

The photo album that these photographs came from holds several photos that I still have the negatives for and consequently many of them have already appeared in articles in the blog. But there are a couple of photos of the old Blackpool standard tram whilst in operation as a maintenance vehicle and I'll get those scanned soon.

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Blackpool's Jubilee Air Show (Part 1 of 2)

Back in 1977 everything was labelled "Jubilee". It was the year of the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II and after a period when the Royals were out of vogue all of a sudden Britain could not get enough of them. The entire country went red, white and blue and Blackpool celebrated with a Jubilee Air Show, held at and over the Squires Gate Airport over the weekend of 28-29 May 1977.

The airport was not as busy then as it was to become. Apart from the Isle of Man, round the Tower and the occasional mail planes, it was fairly quiet. Quiet enough at any rate to hold the air show overhead with just a couple of regular flights taking off or landing between displays.

I was there myself and yet when I look back at these photos I took almost 40 years ago, I'm amazed at the carefree, let the punters walk round the aircraft atmosphere that there was. Yes there were a few barriers - even then, Health & Safety was not about to let people wander about the runway. But they could could walk around very close indeed to the aircraft including some which would have display slots during the day.

As witness the crowd around the Fairey Swordfish - we'll have a closer look in a minute - during one of the pauses in the programme to allow a local plane to land.

There were two Spitfires flying that day, one of which was licensed for a full aerobatic display and the other which was allowed to fly up and down alongside the row of spectators at the barriers but without doing any loops or rolls.

The Avro Lancaster, probably Britain's most famous World War II bomber, was there in the shape of the City of Lincoln which flew during the day and when not airborne was parked close to the barriers.

The Fylde Radio Controlled Models Society had laid out a display before the Lancaster. I think there was a smaller version of a Lancaster there. They too gave display flights of their models as part of the day's programme.

A few shots of the Lancaster...

It had been built right at the end of the war, too late in fact to carry out any hostile missions. Instead she was put to use undertaking aerial surveys over Africa until 1952 when she returned to the UK to face an initially uncertain future. Luckily she was spared and restored and joined the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight in 1973.

The Fairey Swordfish was one of last biplanes in service with the British armed forces, serving in the Fleet Air Arm as torpedo spotters and dive bombers. Already considered obsolete by the start of the war, the 1936 Swordfish never-the-less had great successes in their field and served right through to the end of the Second World War both in Europe and the Far East.

The photos here have been scanned from prints, the negatives having been lost I'm afraid. Yet another of my collection of photo albums from the year 1977.

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Blackpool Air Show Sunday 9 Aug 2015

Yesterday saw us down in Blackpool for the first of a two-day air show. Weather could have been better, but it remained dry and at times patches of blue came through the clouds, but cloud base remained fairly low and many of the photos would have benefited from a touch of sunshine. On saying that, my head did take on a certain red soreness by the end of the afternoon...

First up was the Typhoon - I still think of it as the Eurofighter. This put on a superb show with lots of opportunities for taking shots like this with the twin engines glowing from the afterburners.

It looked even better when it started to turn and the air condensed as water was squeezed out of it, forming mist and vapour trails.

Conditions were not ideal for taking photographs due to the low light levels coupled with the speed at which aircraft travel meaning several photos were a touch blurred. But I did take quite a few so there are enough to go round!

We were sitting on the steps leading down to the beach just south of the North Pier. Cones and a security cordon kept the beach clear of onlookers who might otherwise have strayed a little too close to passing aircraft. It's been an unfortunate year indeed for air shows with a number of incidents in recent weeks. Happily Sunday's show went ahead without mishap. (Monday's is going ahead as I write - a helicopter clattered over the house half an hour ago and I can now hear jet engine noise.)

The Extra EA-260 is a hand-built aerobatic plane designed by Walter Extra which is a name any manufacturer would want on the payroll. Project behind time? Put a bit of Extra into it! This thing can roll a full 360 degrees in a second. Great to watch but it doesn't photograph well...

The BAC Strikemaster, jet trainer and light attack aircraft. An armed version of the Jet Provost, they were mainly used as trainers, but some were deployed on active duty. They first flew in 1967.

The Breitling Wingwalkers are a team of very brave young ladies who take it upon themselves to stand on top of a couple of biplanes hurtling about the sky at 150mph and doing synchronised poses such as high kicks and stuff. In the old days wingwalkers would perform without tethering themselves to the aircraft with some even walking off the wing of one aircraft onto another. This practice quickly fell off though...

Even so, you need a certain amount of nerve to do this and performing in a 150mph gale is not for ninnies!

"Pull up! Pull up!!!"

This is what many people had come to see. The Avro Vulcan's last tour of the North West before it is retired. The ultimate V-Bomber, operational through the Cold War and the aircraft that famously flew down to bomb the runaway at Port Stanley during the Falklands War.

The THRUM! of those jet engines in your chest as you watch is to be savoured! We used to have a ceramic-coated metal scale model on a plinth when I was a teenager. With a wingspan of around 12 inches it would probably be worth a fortune now. It got thrown out at some point unknown...

I remember well in the early days of Ebay when the dilapidated Vulcan from outside Blackpool Airport quickly gained bids of several million pounds before it was pointed out that all armaments had been stripped out and that it wouldn't fly... Wouldn't move at all in fact - it had to be taken to bits on site.

The RotorSport Calidus autogyro. They look great fun but I'm not sure you could coax me into one unless there were twenty of you with cattle prods...

They take two people sitting tandem style in the tiny cockpit and are highly manoeuvrable. Bizarrely the wikipedia website says they can be fitted with navigation lights for night flying - but that night flying is not allowed...

I used to love the air shows of the sixties and seventies which were always full of Spitfires doing their thing. After TV shots of them flying in swarms earlier in the year this was a rather disappointing showing with only one Spit from the Battle of Britain Memorial flight and which seemed to me to stay well away from the audience, making close-up photos impossible.

The Chinook helicopter is an awesome sight. The blooming thing just chunkered over my house whilst I was writing about the Vulcan a bit ago too - I had to stop and make sure none of my teeth were going to rattle loose... The only aircraft of the day to - literally - take a bow! Show-off!

Aw... that's nice! The RV8tors fly a pair of RV-8 aircraft (you see what they did there...?) which are highly manoeuvrable and skid about at 230mph. This is the climax of their display when the two planes each create half of a heart with their smoke trails.

When this appeared I was wracking my brains trying to think what it was. It had a bit of the look of a Feisler, but their best-known model, the Storch, had high wings on a level with the top of the cockpit... It turned out to be a Bűcker Bestmann. If you watch The Great Escape and can tear yourself from the scene where Steve McQueen jumps the fence on a motorbike, concentrate instead on James Garner and Donald Pleasance, who nick one of these and fly back into the hands of the Germans. Oh sorry - I should have said "spoiler alert"...

The Red Arrows have had a bit of a grotty weekend with technical problems. A couple of displays at Belfast and Newcastle had to be cancelled due to the requirement that pilots after a leave must conduct a practice with nine aircraft. Faults were eventually fixed and a practice held, but then an instrument check on one aircraft meant that it had to be pulled again and the Blackpool show went ahead with only eight aircraft. Due to cloud cover this was a flat (flattish) display but the 70,000 strong crowd were making plenty of appreciative noise!

It was madness after the display ended. We had gone down to Blackpool by bus but with so many people heading for public transport we decided to just set off and walked back to Bispham along the cliffs. A good afternoon!

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Blackpool Air Show 2013 - The War Planes

Yesterday I featured the Red Arrows display from this year's air show here in Blackpool. Today I feature the aircraft from the Second World War. These are a Fairey Swordfish MkII, torpedo bomber, made in Sherburn-in-Elmet in 1943. This makes her a Fairey "Blackfish" as the Sherburn Swordfish are known, this being a play on words as the makers were Blackburn Aircraft. The other photos are of the famous Battle of Britain commemorative flight of a Hawker Hurricane, Spitfire and Lancaster bomber. Enjoy.

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Blackpool Air Display 2009

Today there was an air show over the sea between the South and Central piers. I went down there with my trusty camera - eventually after thinking it would as usual be between the Central and North piers...

Topping the bill as usual were the Red Arrows, the RAF display team. First however there were a lot more things to do and see.

Several thousand people for one thing. A Promenade still cordoned off for building work for another. I did stand on the North Pier for a bit but it soon became obvious I wasn't going to see much from there so I set off walking down towards the Central Pier. Which meant walking on the tram tracks really.

Whilst I was still walking, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight gave their display. This was one of the main attractions for me and my view was somewhat limited by railings and fencing, trams going past and people's heads - duh, if 5 foot four inches is good enough for me, it should be good enough for everyone...

Anyway I managed to get one or two shots but the aircraft, flying out over the sea seemed a long way away.

Also the sun sets in the west and at Blackpool the sea is to the west, so having an air display late afternoon over the sea means squinting against the sun and hence a few photos are a bit like silhouettes I'm afraid. They should have it in the morning!

By the time I got down onto the beach just south of the Central Pier there was a wing walking display going on. There wasn't a lot of walking going on actually as she looked to be fairly well fastened to one spot. But she did wave cheerfully and managed to hide the sick bag until the plane had gone past and she had her back to us. Rather her than me. I mean... wouldn't do a thing for my hair!

And then... oh, fabulous! A Vulcan bomber did just two fly-past runs. Those things must suck in fuel at a rate my car can only aspire to, so whilst brief, the Vulcan display might well have been amongst the more costly of the displays of the afternoon. But what a magnificent sight.

I used to have a mate who, during the Cold War, had to sleep under one of these in readiness for being woken up to go and drop atom bombs on Russia. And you think you are stressed at work?

Then a four-aircraft aerobatic display, The Blades. Apparently they are all ex-Red Arrow pilots and they did give a superb display.

But now it was time for the real thing.

The past few times I've seen the Red Arrows there has been low cloud and they had to do a low-level display to avoid being invisible to the audience for much of the time. No such problems this afternoon and we had a superb display, well worth the long walk from the car park.

It took me an hour to walk back afterwards with an incredible amount of people all wanting to either get back home or head back to a hotel for their evening meal. A bit like Blackpool of old! I came over all proud!

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